Sequester cuts target poor, elderly, cancer patients

11:22 AM,
Jun. 15, 2013

Dr. Rita Nahta is seen in her office at the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. Nahta, who has been receiving grants from the National Institute of Health for the past seven years, studies how drug resistance develops in breast cancer cells, work she says is critical for developing medicines to combat the disease. She's continuing to work hard while looking for alternative sources of public and private funding after the allotment from her federal grant was for three months instead of a year in the wake of the federal budget sequester. "It puts that extra bit of fear and drive and uncertainty into everything," she says.

Written by

ALLEN G. BREED
and SHARON COHEN

In March, as the sweeping $85 billion reductions known as sequestration kicked in, President Barack Obama called them "stupid" and "arbitrary" and said they could thwart economic progress. Opponents said the administration was using scare tactics, predicting doom even though the cuts amounted to a tiny slice of the federal budget.

Public opinion is divided: Fifty-six percent of Americans surveyed in an ABC News-Washington Post poll in May disapproved of the cuts, but far fewer - 37 percent - reported they'd been personally hurt. ...